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Twitter starts following Rajnikanth

Indian superstar Rajnikanth during a promotional event for his film 'Kochadaiiyaan'

‘Superstar’ of Tamil cinema, Rajinikanth, on Monday stormed his way into online social network Twitter with his first tweet at 3:58 p.m., which read “Salutation to the Lord. Vanakkam anaivarukkum !! A big thank you to all my fans. Excited on this digital journey.”

Within the next four hours, the verified account (@superstarrajini) had more than 1,00,000 followers and was adding hundreds every minute. The first tweet also had a link to a video recording of the iconic actor stating: “I am happy to connect with my fans through social media, starting with Twitter.”

The news of Rajinikanth having a verified account set the Twitter world abuzz, and his legions of fans started celebrating it in expected fashion.

One of the common reactions to the news was that “Twitter has started following Rajinikanth”. While it took a couple of hours for Rajinikanth’s twitter account to gain the ‘verified by Twitter’ status, some fans were already poking fun and making internet memes in which the official Twitter account was digitally altered to show the “verified by Rajinikanth” emblem.

Several fans were overjoyed that the usually media-shy actor was taking to the social network. However, doubts were raised about the actor directly tweeting on the account. According to a press release, the Twitter account of the actor is being managed by the agency Fluence, a “celebrity digital network”.

The agency is also reportedly managing the digital lives of several celebrities in the country, including Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Sonu Nigam, Shaam and Karishma Kapoor. Everyone who followed the actor’s account got an automated reply with a poster of his upcoming movie Kochadaiiyaan.

This proved to be a bit annoying for some users as they pointed out that their Twitter timelines were spammed by the automated messages.

The press note from Fluence noted that the automated ‘welcomegraph’ would be sent to anyone following the account in the first week.